Monday 16th sees me back at the Magpies near the overflow fishing a short session from 10:00 to 11:15. The 5m Chinese whip was in action again with just loose fed maggot and double maggot on the hook. This produced 16 roach, 4 skimmers a perch and a ruffe for around the pound mark. It has been very noticeable that if you lose a maggot, ie end up with single maggot, you did not get a bite, double maggot the bites returned.

Next day I returned for a short session this time just with two pike rods I did get a run on the sardine (the other rod had a smelt) and appeared to hook it okay but just as I got it in net range the sardine came flying back. Whether it was a hook pull or it wasn’t hooked in the first place I’ll never know.

Gareth returns from the Finland trip and we are back st the Magpies in the wind and rain for two hours armed just with the pike rods- one run and this time a landed pike of 5-02.

That night we were awoken near midnight with a call to say my mother-in-law had died, this was not unexpected and we had already arranged to go up to Yorkshire the day after Gareth et al returned to China. So I was a bit blurry eyed when I got up on Thursday ready to set of to Chew for a day arranged by Gareth on a boat pike fishing.

Having got there we found that although we were in time for a 9am boats ready we were the last to arrive and leave as the rest had been off at 8 or 8:30! We weren’t too bothered as it was meant to be a chilled day with neither expecting to catch given the size of the place and our relative inexperience off a boat. Any way prior to the visit I had purchased a Chinese fish finder similar to a deeper and had tested it on the Pondtail and was quite impressed. I had set it up on a 4m whip so that we would stop the boat and try it before dropping anchor and fishing. To be fair it was very good, identifying the depth and were the fish were sitting in the water and the relative size of fish.

It was lucky that we were able to go on the boat as the boats had been cancelled on Monday and Wednesday due to the high winds. Anyway we spent the best part of six hours staring at pike floats and moving to various locations while blanking! It has to be said that there was a wind and the fish finder inevitably showed more fish on the windward side of the boat rather than the leeward, so we got a bit windswept.

Next day sees us back at the Magpies still no pike but the whips produced 15 Roach, 6 skimmers and a perch for about 2lb for me and Gareth had exactly the same number of fish but 12 roach, 5 skimmers, 3 perch and 2 rudd. Best fish was a 10oz skimmer for me.

Saturday arrives, Gareth was going back to China later that day and I had a Maggotdrowners Silvers match at the Glebe. |Gareth made the most of his time and visited the Magpies very early but after I had left at 5:40 and managed to get a farewell pike of 4-02 and missed another run.

At the draw everyone was saying that the 20s would be best so I was not too disappointed when I drew peg 20. I set up a waggler, light feeder/bomb and two pole rigs- one for 11m the other for 5m. Feeding the 11m line with two balls of groundbait laced with casters worms and micros I put one small ball at 5m and loose fed maggot. I also started feeding the waggler line (about 18-20m) with casters every 5 minutes or so. Starting on the feeder I had a good few casts to get some bait down but saw little response so moved on to the 5m line, no response, on to the 11m line, no response, waggler eventually saw a bite with a skimmer hooked and promptly lost as it reached netting distance! After two hours I had my first fish- a gudgeon on the 11m line. I decided at this point to forget the pole and concentrate on the waggler. I had set it up to fish on the drop with three no8 shot as droppers and by plugging away I started to pick up the odd skimmer. This then went quiet and I swapped to the bomb over the same area that produced a few more skimmers by the end. At the weigh in I found that the non-20s had fished a lot better, indeed of the 20s I had the second best weight, beaten by 3oz at the last peg. Of course as the match ended the rain began!

Fast forward to the 27th I visited the Magpies again for a two hour session, fishing about 20m past the moorings. No pike but the whip produced 12 roach, 8 perch, 12 skimmers, 4 rudd and a very rare bleak! Total approx 2-12 taken on double maggot or worm. If I had stuck to maggot I would have had more but I wanted to see if I could get the better skimmers or perch.

Next month sees matches at the Glebe and Boddington plus I am intending to make a farewell visit to Bowood as the season closes on the 14th and I do not intend to rejoin next season. Meanwhile back in China Gareth caused a bit of a stir with the locals at the predator(bass) commercial by catching a red snapper (Chinese translation) and then had a blank on an evening session.